Many space robotic manipulator designs to-date have been especially accommodating with respect to allowable interface misalignments. While this requirement has the obvious advantage of a generous capture window, it has also imposed considerable mass penalty and a high level of complexity on the manipulator's end-effectors. Current generation robotics performing operations local to the manipulator (i.e. on a common structure) can be expected to have significantly better alignment prior to capture and would as a consequence deem most of the end-effector's misalignment tolerance as superfluous.
With this situation in mind, it would be very advantageous to provide a new interface configured to provide a light-weight, low cost alternative for applications not requiring the full capabilities of traditional snare rigidize end-effectors which tend to have high mass and superfluous capture misalignment capabilities.